Upcoming events:
Bruton Museum Festival
of History and Heritage
1st–31st October 2026
Bruton Museum Festival of History and Heritage Programme
Ticket prices for talks
Members: £5 // Non-members: £10
Ticket prices for House Detectives day-trip (includes transport and sandwich lunch)
Members: £15 // Non-members: £20
1st October
Churchill’s Secret Chart Makers
Top secret chart making was undertaken in Bath and Taunton during World War Two. This was a highly secret and vital operation that involved over 1000 people working for the of the Admiralty.
Adrian Webb
3rd October
The Life and Legacy of William Morris
Exactly 130 years since his death on 3 October 1896, this is a celebration of Morris’s collosal influence on the arts and crafts, political and environmental movements, and the writings of J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis.
Dr Andrew Pickering
8th October
Bruton and the English Civil War
An illustrated talk concerning the impact of war in and around Bruton in the mid-seventeenth century and the roles played by significant figures with Bruton connections.
Gary Kearley
10th October
House Detectives (SOLD OUT)
This special event provides a rare opportunity to visit and explore a remarkable medieval hall house on our Bruton doorstep! Following an introductory talk at Bruton Museum by the Chairman, Andy Pickering, we will travel by minibus to meet our hosts Pek Peppin and William Vaughan who have conserved and restored their fourteenth-century home, including its extraordinary fifteenth-century wall paintings.
Schedule:
9.30-9.45 am: Meet at Bruton Museum, 26 High Street, Bruton. BA10 0AA
10.00am: depart by minibus for the Old House, Castle Cary
11.40am: return by minibus to Bruton for a delicious light lunch (soup, rolls and fillings, hot and cold drinks) at 78 High Street ('Ape or Eden') and a guided tour of historic buildings at West End. 2.00pm: disperse
Dr Andrew Pickering, William Vaughan and Pek Peppin
22nd October
Blue Norther: The Life and Times of Quanah Parker
A talk about the plight of the indigenous peoples of nineteenth-century America and the novel it inspired.
Christopher Lloyd King
15th October
Lamyatt Roman Temple
This talk explores reasons for why a Romano-Celtic temple was built on the summit of Creech Hill and what it can tell us about religion and society in this part of Roman Britain.
Neil Godfrey
24th October
The importance of High Streets: what can we learn from the history of Bruton?
An illustrated update on the development of a major research project concerning the history and heritage of Bruton’s fascinating High Street, past and present.
Emma Craigie and Pippa Lewis
17th October
The Extraordinary World of John Aubrey
This talk, focussing on his Natural History of Wiltshire explores the remarkable John Aubrey (1626–1697), an antiquarian, biographer and archaeologist with genuinely revolutionary scientific insights a century or two ahead of their time.
Louise Ryland-Epton
29th October
Bruton’s Industrial Revolutions
An illustrated talk concerning the fascinating history of Bruton’s textile industries and transport systems.
Dr Andrew Pickering
31st October
Mr Wesley’s Goblin
An entertainment featuring multiple early eighteenth-century eye-witness accounts of the dramatic haunting of the family home of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.
Introduced by Andrew Pickering and performed by Emma Craigie and David Pickering